


Our Man in Africa

by witling



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Bisexuality, Canon-Typical Violence, Commitment, Drinking, Fear of Death, Financial Issues, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 02:58:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1924179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witling/pseuds/witling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nice thing about being a shady ex-pat is that you have connections.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Man in Africa

Arthur is an inveterate bottom, no lie, no shame. He’s not a fetish-y sub, but from the very beginning he’s made his post-job fuck session goals clear. He likes sex hard and exhausting, so that when they’re done—when Eames is done with him—Arthur is limp and comatose, his brain flatlined. Nothing relaxes him the same way as being torn up in bed. 

Which is fine by Eames, as a general thing. 

Until, after what Eames realizes later was a particularly bruising session, Arthur pulls himself off a hotel bed and for a moment he can hardly walk. Eames stares. 

“God, you should have said.” 

Arthur, puffy-eyed, hobbles past him to the toilet. “Said what?” He closes the door, leaving Eames to look at the imprint of his spine on the mattress. 

When Arthur comes back out, still naked but washed up and slicked back, he’s moving almost normally again. Eames is provisionally dressed, waiting for his turn in the loo. 

“Some people run marathons,” Eames says.

Arthur smiles dryly. “I don’t think I’m the marathon type.”

“Maybe I don’t like being used as your flagellation toy.” Eames studies Arthur as he drags his shirt and trousers off the floor. There’s very little visible damage—a red mark on Arthur’s shoulder, another behind his knee where Eames remembers holding him tightly, his fingers digging into the muscle. “At least not without a little conversation beforehand.” 

“I’m not flagellating.” Arthur pulls his shirt on and starts to button it. “I like it hard, okay? It’s not a big deal. And just in case it’s not clear, we’re not dating.” He skins on his shorts and steps into his trousers. “This is just—we work together. We _work_ together.” He points back and forth between them, impatiently flicking his finger. “Or I thought we did.”

Eames sits back, keeping his hands loose on his knees. “What, do you want to stop?”

“No.” Arthur pauses and looks at him. “But if you do, that’s okay.” His face is perfectly reasonable, not angry or passive-aggressive. And that’s Arthur all over. He’s got the whole thing weighed out, what matters and what doesn’t, what makes sense. It’s all rational and sensible and in the best possible taste. Considering. 

Eames thinks about telling him that’s exactly his problem—he’s got his world lined up so neatly that he needs to be fucked out of it so he doesn’t chew off his own limbs. But then, Eames’s own world is historically hip-deep in irrationality and what has that got him? 

He keeps his mouth shut and puts his socks on. And next time they meet on a job, and Arthur extends the subtle, deflectable invitation, he accepts again. Because who doesn’t accept an invitation to fuck a good-looking, gymnastic, extremely willing bloke through the wall? He’d be stupid not to. But still. 

 

 

Eames has sex with other people—mostly women, a couple of men. When he was younger and more pretentious, he thought of himself as a man with appetites. Now he just likes fucking. And he understands what Arthur gets from it, the pure pleasure of exhausting himself in someone else, of unplugging. The hell with marathons, sex is the thing. He gets that. 

But he also likes other things about sex—the little kindnesses, the moments of greed and generosity that open a person up. He’s a people person, he always has been. There’s an inquisitive, acquisitive part of his brain that never quiets, that swells with its own particular kind of pleasure when he sees someone’s throat tighten in a particular way, or hears them hesitate for an instant before they ask for what they want. He likes learning people. And there’s no headier classroom for it than bed.

He has sex with a woman he knows fairly well, what the youth call a fuck buddy—the sex is reliably good and there’s no guilt afterward. In bed with her afterward, he drowses and reflects on how different this is from what Arthur does. Arthur doesn’t drowse, he passes out. At two or three or four in the morning, when he’s done bossing and his body is wrung completely out, he’s lax and heavy and hot, immovable. Blotto. There’s no waking him until he gets up on his own and staggers to the loo to scrape himself back into shape. 

And that’s all fine, Eames thinks. Fine and well as far as it goes. But doesn’t it get a bit old, after a while? It’s a kind of selfishness, not so much a withholding as an indifference. Arthur doesn’t hide what he wants, but he also doesn’t care whether Eames is all right with that. Maybe he takes it as a given that he is, since Eames keeps fucking him. 

 

“Good enough?” Eames asks, when they’re lying in the immediate aftermath, still panting for the same hot hotel-room air. Arthur, collapsed on his side on the covers with his back to Eames, raises a limp hand. It’s an indeterminate gesture. Maybe it means: _look, I have no muscle control left, that was excellent._ Maybe it means: _stop talking._ Maybe both.

“You’re wired up,” Eames observes, when he’s got Arthur pressed against another hotel room wall, his knee between Arthur’s legs, Arthur’s hands fumbling with his fly. “Good thing I’m on this one, I guess.” This job, he means. Arthur knows what he means. He lets it pass. He has more important things on his mind—things like shoving Eames until Eames shoves back, turns him around and pushes him into the wall and jerks his trousers down. Which looks like Eames getting what he wants—and is, at some level—but which is really Arthur’s doing, and they both know it, even if neither of them says so.

“Oh,” Arthur says the next time, stepping back. Eames has his wrists in a loose grip. They’re in Arthur’s hotel room, post-heist. Arthur’s breath tastes of bourbon from the mini bar. He’s smiling, his color is up. He tests Eames’s hold, just slightly. Just enough to show that if he wanted to make something of it, he could. “Are we trying something new?” 

Eames shakes his head and pushes Arthur’s hands back against his own chest. He lets go and steps back. 

Arthur frowns. “You don’t want to?”

“I do and I don’t,” Eames says. He stands there looking at Arthur for a moment, saying nothing. Arthur takes it for a minute, then rolls his eyes and takes his own step back.

“You do and you don’t,” he says. “That sounds like a personal problem, Mr. Eames.”

“Maybe.”

“Put it this way. It sounds like something I don’t want to get into with you.”

Eames tips his head, curious. “Do you even like me?”

To his credit, Arthur looks startled. He’s not all veneer, he’s a real person under there. Eames knows that, but it’s still nice to see it. “Yes. I mean--yeah, I like you.” His brows pinch in suspicion. “Are your…feelings hurt, or something?”

“No.”

“Then what is this?”

Eames shrugs. “I don’t know. Nothing, probably.” Neither of them moves. “I honestly don’t know. I should be fucking you by now.”

“I was going to say.”

“So.” Eames laughs a little. “I don’t know why I’m not.”

Arthur gives him a narrow look, then takes another step back as if Eames has something that might be catching. “How about you call me when you get this figured out?”

“Or not,” Eames says. He’s not sure what he’s doing. He didn’t plan this. And clearly he didn’t telegraph it, because Arthur’s face has gone still in that way that means he’s unpleasantly surprised. 

There’s not much else to say, really. They’re not breaking up, because they were never together. 

“No,” Arthur says. “Okay, that’s fine.” He takes a few more steps away and props himself against the desk. It’s one more barren hotel room, posh and empty, like many hotel rooms they’ve fucked in before. There’s not much to do with your hands in a room like this, in a moment like this. Arthur chooses to put his hands in his pockets. “I have an early flight.”

“Right.” Eames tries on a faint smile. “Safe travels and all that.”

Arthur nods. He offers his own smile in return, tit for tat. 

Eames goes down the hall, down the elevator, straight to the bar. Orders a whiskey and soda, and drinks it staring at the television without taking it in. He has the strangest hollow feeling in his gut, as if something large and serious has been cut out of him. It hasn’t. They were never serious. 

 

He sleeps with other people. Mostly women, a few men. The rogueish ex-pat, the charming thief, the sunburnt scruffy Englishman, sending drinks with compliments from the corner table. He’s a people person. He has very little trouble finding people to sleep with. 

He fucks a twenty-eight year-old Swede who wears his sunglasses on top of his head the entire time. He fucks an exhausting American woman who rakes his back with her nails. He spends two weeks dallying with a woman named Florian, a dispirited journalist with a sharp sense of humor and a gargantuan tolerance for alcohol. Together they close out bars and weave back to his flat or her hotel room, arms around each other, to collapse into bed. Half the time they’re too drunk to fuck, the other half the sex is urgent and amazing. Then she catches her flight back to Rome and he reverts to coffee and seltzer water, not without some relief. 

He works jobs occasionally, when they seem worthwhile and sufficiently remunerative. He’s never seen the point of working more than necessary. He likes his late afternoons free, for sitting at corner tables in cafés and bars, watching people. The Fischer money continues to feather his nest, and of course he has his little side jobs. Packets of casino chips, their lettering almost perfect. Checks signed with elaborate flourishes or in a terse upright hand, as the situation requires. He doesn’t do currency—doesn’t want to invest in the plates, or take the risk of getting caught. Papers, sometimes. It depends on what stamps they need and who’s asking.

He has his life, comfortable and slightly rounded at the edges, familiar and thumbed-through. Some men might get bored with it, the lack of challenge and excitement. Not him. He’s always aspired to a life of uncomplicated leisure. And now he has it. He’s not yet forty and he can sit all day in a rattan chair on a balcony, studying the creases in his trousers. He can sit there all week if he wants to. The Fischer job made him. He’s a lucky man.

 

He’s at the blackjack table when his phone vibrates against his thigh. The woman sitting beside him smiles. Her leg is pressed against his, warm and firm and personal. It’s not a matter of crowding, it’s just that he’s been winning. There are several universal laws of gambling. One is that the house always wins. Another is that when a punter starts a streak, the sharks move in. 

She smiles and he smiles back, then returns his attention to the cards. He has the eight of hearts and the four of diamonds. The dealer shows the four of spades. He taps the table and the dealer slides over the ten of clubs. 

“House wins,” the man intones. Eames watches as his chips are swept away. The woman’s leg eases away from his.

He’s expecting a message about some minor diplomatic papers, so he tips the man and gathers up his remaining chips. Waiting at the cashier’s window, he checks the text. It’s from an American number.

_Need talent in Dar es Salaam. Are you available? A._

He knows several people whose names begin with A. Only one is a decent typist.

He puts the phone back in his pocket and takes his cash, then wanders out into the night. He’s mildly hungry. Dar es Salaam is mansions and slums and bureaucracy. He goes to a restaurant he knows, where the waitress smiles and calls him by name. It’s not his real name, but it’s the one she knows. She takes his order for curry and beer, and leaves him to study the street. Dar es Salaam is vast and sprawling. There are no decent flights. And he’s halfway through a good Len Deighton. One he’s read before, but still.

He takes out his phone.

_When?_

The reply comes before his beer arrives.

_Yesterday._

Of course. He tosses the phone down and stares out the window.

The screen lights. _Will call with details._

“All right,” he says.

_One hour._

“If you like,” he says, and puts the phone away.

 

“Okay flight?” Arthur asks, falling into step beside him as he emerges from customs. Eames gives him a sour sideways glance. There was an hour’s delay on the tarmac in Mombasa, with the air conditioning practically nil. Then thunderheads, people moaning and clutching their seat arms around him while he tried to read. He’s never been a nervous flyer—if you’re going to die in a fiery comet there’s no point panicking over it—but the drama is tiring. 

He doesn’t answer, and Arthur apparently decides to accept that as answer enough. He’s quiet on the way to the car.

“So,” Eames says, when they’re finally on their way out of the airport. “Give me the details.”

Arthur is lean and brown in a white shirt and tan trousers, a heavy black-strapped watch around his left wrist. He has the usual faint circles under his eyes. His nails are short and clean, his hair is raked flat against the crown of his head. He’s as neat and contained and ultimately as transparent as a bottle of designer water. The first time Eames saw him, he knew precisely what Arthur would want in bed. 

“It’s a corporate job,” Arthur says, reaching into the back seat and pulling a file from his case. He drops it in Eames’s lap and proceeds to tell him everything that’s inside it. On every job Eames has worked with him, Arthur has been master of his facts. On the few occasions he’s slipped up—Fischer’s militarized psyche still drifts to the surface of conversations from time to time, rankling—he nurses the omission like a personal injury. 

Now he drives with one hand on the wheel, the other laid across his thigh, his body negligent, his gaze focused on the road. He’s gained a little muscle in his shoulders. Doing what? Eames wonders. None of his business. But Arthur’s shirt is a fraction tight now, the collar pulled open to expose the divot of his throat, the same smooth egg brown as the rest of him. 

“We can go straight there if you’re not too tired,” Arthur says, glancing at him. Eames has to replay the last few seconds. A cafe where the mark has a late lunch scheduled. They can go there. If he’s not too tired. A rare concession, from Arthur.

“No,” he says, “that’s fine.” He stretches his legs as much as he can in the footwell and rolls his neck. “The sooner begun and all that.”

Arthur says nothing, but puts on the signal for their exit.

 

The cafe is in a cliffside hotel, a stuffy colonial compound overlooking the turquoise sea. They take a table on the patio, with Eames facing in so he has a view of the restaurant. There’s a smell of salt and heat, bleached linen, cut pineapple. The waiter hurries over with the padded vinyl wine list, all smiles. 

“Just a Pellegrino,” Arthur says, dismissing the list. 

“Thanks,” Eames says, taking it. Skimming it, he can feel the waiter’s approval and Arthur’s irritation in equal measure. He orders a vinho verde he doesn’t really want and sits back with a smile. 

Arthur looks away at the ocean, studying it as if it’s the whiteboard he’s no doubt been scribbling notes all over for the last few days. 

“People drink here,” Eames tells him. “It’s that kind of place. Order a fucking glass of wine or they’ll think you’re CIA.” He says it pleasantly enough, but Arthur gives him a quick look as if he’s been reprimanded. 

“I’ll have the same,” he says, when the waiter comes back with his water. “And the lobster.”

“Good choice,” Eames says, putting just a little theater into his tone. Arthur’s eyes narrow. “Lobster for me too, lots of butter, all right?” 

The waiter grins--lots of butter for the mzungu, unsurprising--and disappears. 

“Cheers,” Eames says, holding up his glass. “Try to look more like you’re here to exploit the place, will you?”

“What?”

“It’s what’s done, I promise you. Speaking of which--” Eames pauses. The mark is threading his way through the tables to a spot by a pillar. He’s a tall, weedy character with five o’clock shadow and greying curls that stand upright from his head. Even in the heat, he’s wearing a navy suit with the jacket buttoned closed, a dowdy red-and-blue club tie. When he sits he looks with distaste at the place setting, and deposits his hands in his lap. 

“Speaking of which,” Arthur says, studying Eames’s face. “He’s here?”

“Greedy colonialist at six o’clock,” Eames says. “Drink your wine.”

Arthur drinks, looking sour. The waiter brings a basket of soft white bread, and Eames takes a piece to pull apart on his plate. After a minute Arthur does the same.

“Good weather,” he says, looking out at the luminous, windblown ocean as if it were a freeway. “Not too hot.”

“The thing about Arsenal is, they always try to walk it in,” Eames replies. He’s watching the mark. Unmarried, parents long gone. Sloan School of Management and a series of short stints in progressively more rarified managerial positions. Currently the CFO of his older brother’s multinational minerals conglomerate. A mining company, in other words. Here for the gold.

Arthur drinks his wine and says a few more things, in a flat quiet voice that Eames is not meant to listen to and that he doesn’t, in fact, listen to. It would be strange for them to sit here in silence. Arthur knows that. And he’s good at conversations that just brush the surface.

Their lobsters arrive and they apply themselves. The mark has covertly polished his silverware with his napkin and pushed his water glass away. He’s fussy, maybe a little phobic. Africa—even the touristified, absurdly privileged Africa of this cliffside hotel—frightens him. Maybe it should. A man should be afraid of what he abuses. 

“Another glass of wine?” the waiter offers, whisking away Eames’s empty. Eames nods and points at Arthur’s glass too.

“I’m driving,” Arthur says, shaking his head. Eames looks at him. Arthur’s lips tighten. “Okay, one more.”

“So,” Eames says a while later, wiping butter from his lips with the clean linen napkin. “Why the hell are you here?”

Arthur raises an eyebrow. “I thought we covered that.”

“The logistics, yes. The operational details. But not the why.” Eames tosses his napkin on the table and sits back, glass in hand. “Africa isn’t your usual paper route.”

“I got an opportunity.” Arthur seems to realize how lame that sounds, because he adds, “The money’s good.”

“There’s good money in America. Why come all the way down here for it?”

Arthur frowns. “If you’re implying it had anything to do with you—”

“I’m not implying anything.”

“You’re wrong. Africa’s a big place, Eames. People take jobs here. It happens.”

“Of course.”

Arthur shifts in his seat, looking irritated. “You’re supposed to be watching him.”

“I’ve been watching him for the last half hour. He’s an overeducated, overpaid man in a demanding job. Either he never progressed to emotional adulthood or he likes being alone more than he likes fitting into corporate culture. Probably the former, since he wears a class ring. He gets heartburn and sunburn and I’ll lay ten quid he has fantasies of murdering his big brother and moving into his corner office.” Eames smiles. “Shall I go on?”

Arthur shakes his head and digs for his wallet. 

“What are you doing?”

“If you’re done, let’s go.”

“Can’t.”

Arthur stares at him, waiting for him to expand.

“Look at us,” Eames says. “Eating lobster on the patio. Drinking wine with our jackets off. We’re businessmen, aren’t we? We’re here on holiday. We’re here for the sun and the sea and—” He waves his glass, encompassing everything. “We’re relaxing. So we don’t bolt the minute we’re done. Besides, if we leave now we walk straight past his table.”

Arthur takes a breath, then slowly slides his wallet back into his pocket.

“Christ,” Eames says, still smiling. “When’s the last time you did this?”

“I don’t do it like this.”

“Well, I do. Drink your wine.” Eames looks over his shoulder at the ocean. The breeze is wonderful. “So you took the job for the money, all right. Who were you planning to have do my bit?”

“What?”

“I got the impression you called me in as an afterthought. You knew the details before you came, surely. Who did you have lined up to do this part?”

There’s a little color in Arthur’s cheeks. “Pigeon,” he says. 

Eames considers. “He’s got bad habits.” In particular, a fondness for injectables.

“I know.” Arthur looks at the sky as if imploring for patience. “That’s why I didn’t end up hiring him.”

“You knew he had bad habits before you took the job.”

“Yeah. But I’d rather—” Arthur stops.

“You’d rather ask a junkie than me,” Eames says. “Fair enough. It’s your arse that’s on the line, no reason you shouldn’t take a halfway competent heroin addict over a genius professional.”

“Actually, I’d rather take someone with a military background,” Arthur says. “If I have a choice.”

Eames studies him for a moment. “You’re expecting trouble.”

“I hope not.”

“But you think it’s likely.” 

“If you want to back out, that’s fine.”

“You already got me on the fucking plane though, didn’t you?” Eames doesn’t bother to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “What kind of trouble, exactly?”

“Nothing—” Arthur speaks more quietly. “Nothing specific. I’m just a little more careful these days.”

“And you think he’s been militarized.”

“If you want to back out.”

“You could have mentioned it on the phone. In with the bit about the money.”

“The money’s good.”

“There’s no money good enough for being shot in the face.” Eames downs the rest of his wine and looks again at the mark. “It’s something I try specifically to avoid.”

Arthur could, at this juncture, point out that if anyone’s going to be shot it’s likely to be him. That if anyone’s likely to be held harmless in all this, it will be the mark’s own brother, the only man he trusts. Or Eames, who will be playing him. 

They both know this—but they also both know that if a dream goes bad it goes bad for everyone. Once the projections start shooting, no one’s really safe.

The mark scribbles on his bill, stands, and pushes his chair neatly to the table before turning and striding out. He’s spent the whole meal on his Blackberry. He left an empty blister packet on the table beside his plate.

“He’s gone,” Eames says, setting his glass down on the table. “Five minutes and we can leave.”

“So,” Arthur says. “Do you want to back out?”

Eames scrubs his fingers one last time with the napkin, then tosses it onto his plate. The waiter is coming their way with the bill and a big smile.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” Eames says. “But there are times when I would very much like to punch you in the mouth.”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, as if this is a foregone conclusion. “The feeling’s mutual.”

 

They’re working out of a suite at the Hyatt Regency, which Eames considers foolhardy until he realizes it’s practically all electronic--there’s nothing for wayward staff to stumble over unless they’re stealing guest laptops from safes. The folder Arthur handed him in the car was a concession—Arthur knows he prefers paper. He sits with his sheets spread out around him on the couch, reviewing biographies, while Arthur and Mira and Okey clack away on their keyboards at the table. It’s almost peaceful. Except.

Around two o’clock Okey stretches, releasing an impressive crack from his sternum, and pushes back his chair. “I’m going for lunch.”

Mira, buried in her elevations, says absently, “Bring me something back.” 

He leaves, and Eames takes the opportunity to stand up, shed his papers, and pat his pockets for his cigarettes. Always have a packet of cigarettes, that’s one of his ground rules. You never know when you’ll want a private word with someone, and there’s no better excuse for it than needing a fag.

He starts for the sliding glass door to the balcony, but pauses at Arthur’s elbow. Tapping a cigarette from the packet in a preoccupied fashion. But close enough that Arthur looks up.

“Lost my lighter,” Eames says. “You’ve got one, yeah?”

Arthur gazes at him a moment, the wheels turning. “In my jacket.”

Eames goes on out to the balcony, into the warm slightly sweet-smelling air of the seventh story. He stands gazing down at the palm trees that line the front promenade, the taxi cabs and cars wheeling slowly through the drive. The ocean is a beautiful summery blue, the sky dotted with high clouds. If he doesn’t look around he doesn’t even have to see the slums. 

The glass door opens and Arthur steps out, lighter in hand. 

“Thanks,” Eames says. He offers the packet and before Arthur can refuse, says quietly, “It looks better if you have one too.”

Arthur gives him an irritated look. “I don’t need you to tell me how to do things, Eames.”

“Oh really?” Eames lights his own cigarette, then hands the lighter back. “So you know your man’s brother works for Joly Berlet, then.”

Arthur takes the lighter, turning it in his fingers. He lights his cigarette and puts the lighter in his pocket. He’s not a convincing smoker. “He has ties,” he says. “That’s all.”

“That’s interesting.” Eames leans on the railing, looking down at the cars. “This job just keeps getting more and more interesting.”

“He’s not active. He probably never was.”

“And you know this how, exactly? Because Berlet is the type of mercenary-for-hire to keep strict employee records?”

“The mark’s a fucking CFO.”

Eames lets his cigarette hand drop and stares at Arthur. Arthur takes it for a minute, then looks away. 

“You want out?”

“I want to know what you think you’re doing, exactly. Why you’re taking jobs in Africa all of a sudden. And why you’re playing down the risk.”

Arthur keeps his gaze on the city. A muscle in his jaw tics. 

“It’s not like you,” Eames goes on. “It makes me think there’s something else going on.” He waits.

There’s a pause, long enough that he thinks Arthur’s going to say something. It can’t be money, Arthur’s clever about money. What else?

“If you want to drop out,” Arthur says, “tell me now. I’ll need to scramble someone else before Monday.”

Eames smokes his cigarette, staring at the ocean. 

“Eames,” Arthur says.

“Don’t fucking rush me.” He gives Arthur a hard look over his shoulder. “You of all people.”

Arthur takes an inexpert drag on his cigarette and turns his head to blow the smoke away.

“You can’t ask people to work like this,” Eames says. “This is topside risk. Not just bad dreams. And it’s not just your head on the block.”

“Nobody’s head is on any block.”

Eames looks through the glass door at Mira, still busy with her drawings. “Do the others know?”

“There’s nothing to know.”

Eames looks at Arthur, then grinds his cigarette into the railing and stands up. “Fine. I’m out.”

For just a second, he sees surprise in Arthur’s face--surprise and something almost like panic. Then it’s gone, covered up. It gives Eames a prickling feeling on the back of his neck, a hollow in his belly. He hesitates.

More quietly, he says, “What the hell is going on, Arthur?”

But Arthur’s stubbing out his cigarette, carefully killing every ember before he flicks it over the railing. “Okay. I’ll get someone else.”

Eames sighs. “Who?” They both know there aren’t a lot of options, not on Arthur’s timeline and not here, in east Africa. He’s going to have to pay through the nose to get anybody at all down here in time, and whoever he gets isn’t going to be top-notch. 

That’s not his problem, Eames tells himself. It’s Arthur’s. If he wants to do this job so badly, he can do his own recruiting. He’s already brought Eames down here on false pretenses, cost him a couple of days that he could have spent losing his hard-earned money to the blackjack table. 

“I’ll cover your airfare,” Arthur says. He turns and goes back inside, leaving Eames on the balcony alone.

 

Eames can pay his own travel costs, thanks all the same. He can make his own excuses and hail his own taxi and tell the driver to take him...not to Julius Nyerere, but to a cafe he knows on Haile Selassie, where he takes a corner table and moodily drinks his tea. 

Eames can make his own decisions. He can, for instance, decide to take a room at the Southern Sun and eat highly questionable mu xu pork for dinner. He can drink gin and tonic in a shabby bar until midnight, then wander back to his hotel with his jacket slung over his shoulder. He can turn up the volume on his phone ringer before he goes to bed, just in case.

When he wakes up there’s late morning sunlight falling through the sheer curtains and no messages on his phone. He has a momentary falling sensation in his belly, before he catches himself with a reminder: it’s Arthur’s problem, not his. And anyway, no news is probably good news. At least it’s not bad news.

He showers, eats breakfast in the hotel restaurant with a two-day-old copy of La Nación folded open to the financial section. He checks his email, and replies to a few loose ends. At last he has to admit to himself that he’s wasting time, lingering in Dar like a teenaged boy hanging around some girl’s locker in hopes of being noticed. Arthur’s dismissed him. It’s time to go.

He’s in a taxi on his way to the airport when his phone rings. He doesn’t know the number but he answers anyway. It’s Mira.

“I’m bailing,” she tells him. “I guess you know why.”

“Sorry to hear it.” He keeps his tone light, although his heart has kicked up a notch. 

“You could have said something. It would have been nice.”

“I’m not even sure I know what we’re talking about.”

“I’m pretty sure you do.”

“Well, then I’m sorry if I disappointed you.”

She makes a noncommittal noise. “Okey’s out too.”

Eames feels a slight tightness settle in his chest. “That makes for a very small team.”

“It makes for Arthur on his own. Which, you know, I like Arthur. But he should have said something a little sooner.”

“I can’t disagree with you on that.”

“Anyway.” She sounds glum. “I guess he’s going to have to call off the job.”

“I’m sure he will.” He leans forward to tap the taxi driver’s acrylic partition. When the man glances back, Eames makes a round-about gesture with his finger. The man frowns. “Thanks for the call, Mira.”

“Yeah, see you on the flip side.” She hangs up. 

“Back to the hotel,” Eames says to the taxi driver. “I’m terribly sorry, I forgot something important.”

The man starts to tell him it’s impossible, the fare is fixed, no returns--until Eames presses a couple of crisply folded bills to the partition. Then they’re turned around in no time, heading back to the Hyatt Regency.

 

There’s a long pause after Eames knocks--long enough that he starts to wonder whether Arthur’s already cleared out of the suite. He could call, but he’s not sure Arthur would pick up. Knowing him, he’s busy figuring out how to pull off this job alone. To do the impossible, that is.

The door opens. Arthur stands there looking at him--at first blankly, and then with a flush of color in his cheeks. The front of his shirt is strangely bunched, the hem pulled out of his trousers on one side. There’s a red mark on his jaw.

“Eames,” he says, and his tone is loud and flat enough to immediately give notice that they’re not alone. “What a surprise.”

The door swings open another six inches, revealing the large, cheaply-suited man standing just on the other side of it. He inclines his head sideways, telling Eames to walk into the room. Eames gives Arthur a look, but Arthur’s face is stone. Eames walks in.

There are two more men in the room, both of them standing at alert. One of them--florid whiskered face, eyes like pebbles--gestures for Eames to raise his arms.

“No need for that,” Eames says. “Just a friendly visit.” But he does it anyway, and the man pats him down with military efficiency, pausing to lift his mobile phone, wallet, and the Rohrbaugh R9 holstered in the small of his back. Then he pushes Eames down onto the sofa while he flips through the wallet.

“Who is he?” the first man asks. He’s talking not to his pebble-eyed friend, but to Arthur. Arthur is standing with his hands loose and visible at his sides, his eyes fixed on some point in the carpet.

“His name is Eames,” Arthur says. “I hired him for the job, but he called off when he figured out the Joly Berlet connection.”

Eames feels mild surprise, and then worry. Arthur’s not only telling the truth, he’s volunteering information. That’s a last-ditch tactic, the thing you do when they know all the important stuff and have a pair of pliers handy to find out the rest. Cheap Suit looks at Pebble Eyes, who tosses Eames’s wallet onto the armchair and nods. 

“What’s he doing back?” Cheap Suit asks. 

Arthur pauses for just a second. His lips compress. “I don’t know,” he says. “But if I had to guess, I’d say he found out Mira and Okey both quit, and came back to check on me.” 

Cheap Suit looks at Eames, then back at Arthur. “Is he your babysitter?”

“No. We used to fuck.” Eames tenses, then forces himself to relax. “And we’re still friendly, kind of. I think he came back for sentimental reasons.”

Cheap Suit gives Eames a considering look. “Anything you want to add?” 

Eames shakes his head. He’s flushed, he can feel it. 

Cheap Suit turns back to Arthur and gives him a long up-and-down look. Arthur doesn’t react. To Eames it looks like Cheap Suit is deciding what to do next. That’s not good, because it means Cheap Suit is empowered to make his own decisions. The other two might be no more than goons, but Cheap Suit is a free agent. 

Cheap Suit takes a breath and settles himself, then grips Arthur’s bicep and motions to the third man. 

“I can still do the job,” Arthur says. 

“No you can’t,” Cheap Suit says. He glances at Pebble Eyes. “Tie boyfriend’s hands behind his back.”

“I can still do it,” Arthur says. “Okey already set up the PASIV, I’ve got his loads. And Mira’s build is almost done. It’s a one-level dream. It’s simple.”

“I thought you needed a team.” Cheap Suit takes something from his pocket—a silencer. Pebble Eyes is jerking Eames’s hands back, cinching his wrists hard enough to bite into the skin. “You told Mr. Berlet you needed a team.”

“I did. I do.” Arthur’s still staring at the carpet. “Under ordinary circumstances, this would be a four-person job. But half the work’s already done.”

Cheap Suit rolls the silencer between his finger and thumb, listening.

“The only part I can’t do,” Arthur says slowly, as if the words cost effort, “is the forge. I can’t do that.”

“Then you can’t do it,” Cheap Suit says. He nods at the third man. “Tie his hands.”

The third man produces a length of black nylon cord from his pocket and whips it around Arthur’s wrist, yanks it behind his back, grabs his other hand and yanks it back too. Arthur’s expression doesn’t change, but his face has blanched. He doesn’t say anything while the man tightens the cord and knots it. 

“Mr. Berlet wishes to express his disappointment,” said Cheap Suit. He takes a Beretta from a shoulder holster beneath his coat and starts to screw on the silencer. “Let’s go in the bathroom for this.”

The third man puts a big hand on Arthur’s shoulder and starts to turn around. Arthur shoots Eames a look, hard and desperate, as both Cheap Suit and the other one start manhandling him backward.

“I can do it,” Eames says. It comes out sounding calmer than he feels. His mouth is paper-dry, his whole body is buzzing. He can hardly feel the cord cinched around his wrists. But he sounds quiet, in control. 

Cheap Suit pauses.

“I can do it,” Eames repeats. He won’t pause to lick his lips or swallow. That would be a giveaway. He looks straight at Cheap Suit, not letting himself think. “I’m the forge. That’s my part.”

Cheap Suit thinks for a moment. Then he lets go of Arthur’s arm and walks—strolls, really—across the carpet to stand in front of Eames. It forces Eames to tip his head back, to keep eye contact. He does it, and lets Cheap Suit stare into his face and think whatever thoughts he’s going to think. 

There’s a long, long moment of silence. Eames has a flash of what a mess the bathroom will be, blood and brains everywhere. They’ll do Arthur first, then him. So he’ll hear Arthur go. He stops thinking.

“You’re the forge,” Cheap Suit says. “Okay.” He spins on his heel and walks back to Arthur. The gun is still in his hand. “What about the chemist?”

“I told you, the loads are ready.”

“Sounds simple.” Cheap Suit taps the barrel of the gun against his thigh. “But I bet it’s not.”

“No.” Arthur’s staring at the carpet again. “It’s not simple. But it’s possible. I can still do it.”

“You can still do it,” Cheap Suit says. He turns to point at Eames, then at Arthur. “You—” The emphasis is on the plural now, he’s talking to both of them. “Can do it. The whole thing.”

“Yes.”

Cheap Suit nods, takes a breath, then motions to the third man, the one still holding Arthur’s bound wrists like he’s holding a leash. “Bathroom.”

“What?” Arthur’s face is shocked. He tries to step forward, and the man holding his wrists grabs him by the shoulder and jerks him back. “I told you—”

“I heard you,” Cheap Suit says. He takes something from his pocket, a wad of black cloth. Stuffs it into Arthur’s mouth, then drops his arm almost casually across Arthur’s throat and starts walking him backward into the lavatory. 

“Gag the boyfriend,” he says over his shoulder, and the next thing Eames knows there’s a knot of black cloth shoved in his mouth, strangling him. He jerks back instinctively. Pebble Eyes shoves him off the couch to his knees, then plants a foot in his back to put him on his belly. Face-down on the carpet, Eames can hardly breathe.

Through his brain runs a rapid, panicky litany. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. And part of him is listening for the whump, followed by the heavy thud of Arthur’s body hitting the floor. He can’t quite believe what’s happening. Five minutes ago he was standing in the hallway. Ten minutes before that he was in a taxi cab. 

From the bathroom there’s a sound of scuffling, bodies in argument. Eames wrenches his head up to try for a look. He’s at the wrong angle. Pebble Eyes palms the back of his head and mashes his nose back into the carpet. For a moment Eames can’t breathe at all. He thrashes. The edges of his vision go red. Somewhere, there’s a strangled yell and the sound of boot heels squeaking against tile. 

He manages to get his head to the side for a lungful of air. It clears his head enough to realize that Cheap Suit and the other one have come out of the lavatory. Alone. He has to think. He can’t talk, he can barely breathe. Think, think. 

All he can think is, how the fuck did this go so wrong, so fast?

Pebble Eyes gets a hand under his arm and hauls. This is it, Eames thinks. He lets his legs go limp, forces Pebble Eyes to do the work of lifting him, never mind the pain in his shoulder. Fuck them. He can hear his own breath, gasping and labored through his nose. Cheap Suit says something, he doesn’t catch it. A quick lunge forward—

Pebble Eyes grabs him by the back of his jacket, ripping seams, and tosses him back onto the sofa. Eames lands on his hands, bending his wrists. It doesn’t matter. He can see Cheap Suit and the other one, they’re at the door to the room. No guns. They look as if they’re ready to leave.

He makes a supreme effort and stops thinking. Makes himself go limp all over, collapsing into the sofa.

“That’s right,” Pebble Eyes says. “Now, don’t be stupid.” He tweaks the gag from Eames’s mouth and waits a minute, holding it ready. Eames heaves in air but doesn’t yell, doesn’t speak. He fixes his eyes on Cheap Suit, busy smoothing his bad jacket down over the line of the Beretta.

“The schedule’s the same,” Cheap Suit says. “Mr. Berlet expects his delivery tomorrow afternoon. Noon local time.”

It crosses Eames’s mind to say _Are you mad?_ Are they telling him the job’s his now? 

He’s still panting when they close the door behind them. They’ve left his wallet, phone, even the gun. All lying on the seat of the armchair across from him. There’s a spot in the carpet where his face was, where the fibers are pushed the wrong way. 

He gets up on legs that feel like jelly, and forces himself across the room to the lavatory. His body is buzzing, his mind is buzzing. Thoughts aren’t making themselves clear just yet. He looks around the doorframe.

Arthur’s kneeling on the floor, his hands still bound behind his back. There’s something dark on the floor in front of him--for a second Eames sees it as blood before he realizes it’s the gag. Arthur’s breathing. He’s alive. Brains still in his head.

Eames slumps against the door. All of a sudden he’s sweating bullets. Is he relieved? Furious? He can’t tell. He looks dumbly back at the room, at the mark on the carpet where his face was shoved. His forehead feels hot. Carpet burn.

“Jesus.” In the bathroom, Arthur’s still kneeling, he hasn’t moved or spoken. “Fucking— Christ.” Eames sinks down onto his haunches. It’s awkward, his hands are still tied up behind him. He’ll have to find something to cut the tie. Do it before his hands go numb, or they’ll both be up shit creek. 

He shakes sweat off the tip of his nose. “You all right?”

Arthur’s breathing strangely. Fast and shallow, as if he’s controlling it tightly. He wets his lips before he speaks.

“There’s a knife in my bag. By the bed.” He stops, takes a breath, then lurches to his feet. From that angle, Eames can see there’s a weirdness to his carriage. His right side is canted high, as if he’s being pulled down by invisible wires on the left. “Eames.”

“Right.” He pushes himself upright against the door frame, lumbers across the room, fiddles with the bag until he gets the knife out. His hands are clumsy, but he manages to cut the cord without slicing himself. Fingers stinging, he collects the Rohrbaugh and heads back to the lavatory. 

Arthur’s standing with his forehead pressed to the wall beside the shower. He says nothing as Eames comes in. Is his arm broken, Eames wonders. How the fuck do they expect him to do a job with a broken arm?

“Hang on,” he says, working the knife under the cord. Arthur’s hands are almost purple. The cord is nylon, professional-grade. It takes a hard pull to cut it, which makes Arthur grind his forehead against the wall. “You all right?”

“Yeah.” Arthur sounds far from all right. He raises his right hand gingerly, starts to reach around for his left, then pauses. “Lock the door.”

“Do it yourself.” Eames’s brain is settling now, the buzzing is fading away. “Jesus Christ. I told you—” Arthur’s ignoring him, lifting his left arm slowly up and to the side. “What’s wrong with you?”

“My shoulder’s out.” Arthur’s staring fiercely at the baseboard. “Go lock the door.”

“Fuck you.” But Eames goes to flip the latch anyway. He comes back, stands in the doorway, and watches Arthur lift his arm slowly over his head. By the look of it, it hurts like hell. “You’re a fucking idiot, Arthur.”

Arthur says nothing. After a minute Eames decides fair enough, what’s he going to say? He fucked up. They’re both still alive. It’s pointless to harp on it. He steps into the lavatory.

“Here.” Arthur hesitates, then turns to offer his left side. Eames runs his hand over the shoulder, feels the projection where there should be none. The ball’s right out of the socket. “All right.” He takes firm hold of Arthur’s wrist and bicep, turns and lifts. Arthur’s breathing stutters. But the arm lifts, and Eames could swear he feels a gritty click somewhere deep in the workings. He turns the forearm back across Arthur’s belly and tension drains out of Arthur’s body like water down a drain.

“Fuck.” Arthur takes possession of his wrist with his good hand, and fades back a step. There’s sweat on his lip and temples. “Thanks.”

Eames waves it off and goes out. He’s standing in the middle of the room, staring blankly at his wallet and phone on the seat of the armchair, when Arthur emerges and goes to his bag by the side of the bed. He’s got his arm against his chest like a broken wing, but it doesn’t stop him from digging a Glock out of his bag and laying it on the night table, then putting a couple of loaded clips down beside it. 

“Wish you’d had that when you answered your door half an hour ago,” Eames says. 

“It wouldn’t have mattered.” Arthur pulls a shirt from the bag and starts folding it into a sling. “We need a plan.”

“We?” Eames laughs, as if it’s funny. “Who’s this fucking we, exactly?”

“If you think you’re not committed now—”

“I most certainly am not fucking committed. I just had a gun in my face thanks to your stupidity, the only thing I’m committed to is getting on a fucking plane out of here.”

Arthur, folding his shirt into a neat field-duty triangle, glances up at him. He says nothing. A moment passes, and Eames starts to feel a bit foolish. He lifts his jacket and shoves the Rohrbaugh into his back holster. It reminds him to inspect the stitching on his sleeves. “Well, that’s fucking torn. Thanks to you.”

Arthur, bizarrely, seems to have the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Sorry.”

“You think this is funny,” Eames says. “I put that shoulder in for you, I can come over there and take it out again.”

“No.” Arthur takes a breath, smoothing the shirt with his palm. “No, it’s not funny. I’m sorry.”

“Fucking Joly Berlet,” Eames says. “Fucking Joly fucking Berlet. When did you get so stupid, Arthur?”

“If you hadn’t bailed--”

“Oh, now.” Eames just barely stops himself from shaking a finger in the air. “Be very careful what you say about me bailing out.”

Arthur pauses. A moment passes. “If you hadn’t bailed out,” he says, keeping his eyes on the sling, “Mira and Okey wouldn’t have got spooked. The job would be practically done by now.”

“Says the idiot who took a job for Joly Berlet.” But it’s true, Eames knows it is. A job like this, it’s like the stock market. It’s all fine as long as everyone thinks it’s fine. If nobody panics, everybody gets paid. It’s when people start to panic that the whole thing falls apart. 

Arthur slips the sling under his bad arm and fumbles to get it up around his neck. 

“For fuck’s sake,” Eames says. He goes over and makes the thing sit properly, ties the knot and fits it in the hollow of Arthur’s collarbone. “So what kind of plan do we need, exactly?”

“A good one,” Arthur says. His tone is grim. “We need to get Mr. Berlet his numbers by noon tomorrow. Which means our mark needs to be under by…” He moves to check his watch, and stops with a wince. “Eight am, no later.”

“Our mark,” Eames says, “is a very busy man. And you’re not exactly in good shape to pull off an ad hoc kidnapping.”

“Yeah,” Arthur says. He heaves himself to his feet and stands for a moment staring blankly at the carpet. Eames follows his gaze. It’s the streak his face left. There’s a trace of blood in the fibers, he sees now. He puts his hand up to his face and feels it, just a hint of tackiness, on his eyebrow. Carpet burn.

“You were supposed to be gone,” Arthur says, still staring at the carpet. “You were supposed to fly out yesterday.”

“Lucky I didn’t, I guess.” 

“I guess.” Arthur sounds bleak, or maybe just distracted. 

“Well don’t go limp on me now.” Eames walks over and scuffs the mark with his shoe, making it disappear. If he hadn’t come back Arthur would be dead by now. No, he would have come up with something, some lie or compromise or bribe, to buy himself a little time. Arthur’s a problem-solver. 

Honestly, though. He’d be dead by now. Blood and brains on the lavatory floor.

“Sometime you’ll have to tell me all about this,” Eames says, heading for the bar. “Why you’ve chosen to work for one of the more frightening men in the world. I’m sure there’s a good story in it.” 

“Not really.” Arthur pulls his laptop from his bag and sits down on the edge of the bed. “Anyway, we might both be dead by tomorrow.”

“Then I’d better make this a double,” Eames says.

 

The job, as Arthur said earlier under duress, is actually quite simple. Eames has seen the mark already, Mira’s done most of the build, Okey’s left the loads. The plan is for a single level to the dream. Arthur will set it up, run the lines, be backup and diversion. Meanwhile, Eames will be the mark’s brother. He’ll ask the man some key, leading questions about the family business, and its connection to Mr. Berlet’s interests. 

Namely: two years ago, French Guiana. Twelve Joly Berlet security consultants were sent to close an illegal goldmine in the jungle. Somehow, in the ensuing conflict, all but two of them died. The survivors reported that the miners were heavily armed, that they had assault rifles and a hand-held rocket launcher. American made.

“What a cock-up,” Eames mutters, leafing through the history again. 

“Yeah.” Arthur’s got a bag of ice in one hand. He’s alternately turning pages, scribbling notes, and pressing the bag against his shoulder. “My take is, Berlet’s already 90% sure our guy helped run the Guianese side, under his brother’s orders. But he wants confirmation.”

“And a little more than that,” Eames says. “He wants names and addresses.” He pushes the papers aside. “He wants a hit list.”

Arthur flips a page, writes something, says nothing.

“This isn’t your kind of job,” Eames says. “This isn’t just corporate intelligence. It’s background for an assassin.”

Arthur looks up from beneath his brows. “He’ll leave his hotel tomorrow morning at seven forty-five. Okey’s gone, so we need a new driver.”

“And what happens when Mr. Berlet has his information?” Eames asks. “He writes us a check and we slip merrily off into the night? Or do we get another visit from the gentlemen with the large shoulders?”

“The only thing we need to worry about right now,” Arthur says, “is getting a driver we can trust.”

“I can worry about more than one thing at a time.”

“Not if you want to live through this.” 

 

The nice thing about being a shady ex-pat is that you have connections. Eames doesn’t know a driver, but he knows a bloke who knows a bloke. No more than a couple hours after he’s started asking around, he’s got a slim young Rwandan at the door, already wearing the livery of the mark’s car company. 

“You can’t be late,” Arthur says, fixing her with a hard look. “You understand? Seven o’clock, we’ll be at the garage. You have to be there too.”

The girl’s name is Jonathina, she can’t be more than nineteen. Probably not even that. Her eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. “Yes sir.”

“You have to excuse him,” Eames says from his seat by the bar. “He’s not a complete tosser, he’s just had a bad day.”

Jonathina’s gaze lowers to the makeshift sling across Arthur’s chest. “I wasn’t late coming here. I won’t be late tomorrow.”

“Good.” Arthur hands over the envelope he’s prepared. “Half now, the rest when we’re done.”

“Yes sir.” Jonathina makes the envelope disappear and slides out the door. Eames drains his glass. Arthur glances at him.

“You’re going to be drunk for this?”

Eames cracks an ice cube between his teeth. “Seltzer. Darling.”

Arthur goes back to his laptop. There’s a line carved between his eyes, a furrow of irritation and impatience and probably pain. He’s taken Tylenol, but the last time Eames had a shoulder go out he chased his pills with whiskey and still spent half the night sitting up, bleary-eyed, in front of a weird Tarkovsky marathon on staticky Swedish television. 

Well, Arthur’s shoulder is Arthur’s lookout. And if he wanted to keep all his parts in place he shouldn’t have taken a job for Joly Berlet. 

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” Eames says, heaving himself up and going to poke through his mark photos, spread across the bar top. 

“Which is?” Arthur doesn’t look up from his screen.

“Oh well, never mind.”

“Come take a look at this.” Arthur turns his laptop and points. “Close enough?”

Eames squints at the screen. They’re taking the mark into his brother’s summer house, a five-bedroom custom developer special in Aspen. It’s a risk because they’ve never been there, never seen the place, they have to work from pulled plans and permits—but the mark’s only been there a couple of times so he hardly knows it any better. It’s safer than putting him in the office, where he lives and breathes and knows every detail. 

Mira didn’t finish the build before she bailed, so Arthur’s putting on the final touches. He rotates the view, showing Eames the French doors, the second-story deck, the vaulted ceiling. It’s exactly the kind of thing a man like this would spend a million dollars on.

“The lights are wrong,” Eames says. “Do tracks and cans, that’s what he’d have. And put a spot on the mantelpiece art. He spent enough on it, and he’s the kind that wants people to know it.”

Arthur nods and pulls the laptop back, starting to type. 

“You’re getting good at this.” Eames pushes off the desk. “You should be an architect.”

Arthur snorts without looking away from his screen. 

“Assuming you’re still alive tomorrow afternoon,” Eames says.

Arthur pauses and looks up at him. “Why did you come back?”

“I thought you might need help.”

“You were supposed to leave.”

“I didn’t.” Eames goes to the bar and pours himself another glass of seltzer. “I don’t always do everything you tell me, remember.”

“I remember.” Arthur sits for another minute just watching him, until Eames turns and gives him a pointed look. Then he starts typing again. The furrow reappears between his eyes. Eames hadn’t even realized it was gone. 

 

When Eames pulls into the garage the next morning, it’s already twenty degrees and both Jonathina and Arthur are already there. They’re standing by the limo, the engine off but the AC running full blast and the doors wide open to cool the air a bit. Jonathina is pristine in her dark blue suit and cap. Arthur looks like he’s spent the night roped to an iron bedframe. He’s got a thin scruff of beard and a couple of bruise-like shadows under his eyes. His face has a nasty pallor. But he’s wearing a neat grey suit and tie, and his hair is slicked back with customary force. He’s lost the sling.

“We’re on schedule,” Arthur informs him, then goes back to the map he’s spread over the hood of the limo. Pointing, he tells Jonathina, “We need to be here by seven twenty-five.”

She studies the map, then nods. “Yes. I can do that.”

“He won’t be expecting you. You’re going to tell him the office sent you, there’s an emergency problem. You remember the names I gave you?”

“I remember.” Jonathina doesn’t look at Arthur. She bends over the map and studies it in closer detail. 

“Hello.” Eames takes a place beside Arthur, in the cool air issuing from the limo. “What time have you got?”

Arthur lifts his left arm to check, and immediately winces and drops it. 

“Ah ha,” Eames says. “I’m going to be doing the heavy lifting, I see.”

“I’m fine.” Arthur gives him a black look. “The sedative’s ready to go.”

“We’ll just hope he’s docile enough for us to give it to him.”

“There are two of us. And he’s a fifty eight-year-old CFO. I think we can handle it.”

“I’m only saying, this part is bad enough when everyone’s at full speed. I like it a lot less when you’ve only got one wing.”

“You’re complaining, basically.”

Eames shrugs. “If I’m going to be shot in the head by thugs this afternoon, it’s my prerogative.” 

Jonathina, he notices, is giving him a sharp look from beneath her driver’s cap. Arthur’s caught it too.

“Nobody’s getting shot,” Arthur says firmly. “Nobody’s getting hurt. He gets in the car, we dope him, we’re here by seven twenty-five, he’s out by seven fifty. Done.”

“Done,” Eames repeats. “I like the sound of that.”

“He has a gun?” Jonathina asks. She’s standing up now, looking troubled.

“I fucking hope not,” Eames says. Arthur gives him an exasperated look.

“No. He doesn’t have a gun. Nobody’s getting shot, Eames is an idiot.”

Jonathina looks pensive.

“Tell you what,” Eames says. “Another hundred for your trouble.” He fishes in his pocket, draws out his bill clip and hands it over. Jonathina takes it, her gaze still worried. “Chin up. It’s not your head on the block.”

“If he has a gun—“

“He doesn’t have a gun,” Arthur says. “Check the car. We’re leaving in ten.” He pulls the black nylon hypodermic case from the back seat and walks away with it, over to the windows where there’s some light. Eames plucks his shirt away from his ribs, where it’s sticking with sweat.

“What happened to your head?” Jonathina asks. She’s looking at Eames’s forehead, the rug burn.

“Lovers’ quarrel,” Eames says. “Better check the car. If it conks out halfway back, Arthur’ll shoot you himself.”

 

They sit at the curb outside the mark’s hotel, secluded behind black-tinted glass. The air conditioning is on full force, the limo is frigid. It’s seven fifteen. Outside, the sky is bright and overcast, a heavy heat descending. The mark is late.

“Seven twenty,” Eames says, when it is. Arthur, sitting across from him with the hypodermic in his hand, doesn’t say anything. His eyes are locked on the hotel’s revolving door. He might be made of wax, or stone.

Jonathina is stationed by the door, waiting for the mark to exit so that she can accost him, tell him about the mocked-up emergency, hurry him to the car. She’s out there doing her part—which so far includes standing in the shade of the building, making conversation with the doorman. At least she looks at ease, doing it. 

There’s a ten o’clock flight from Dar to Johannesburg, Eames happens to know. From there, they have options. Australia, or straight to Asia. Indonesia has served him as a go-to-ground before. Arthur will no doubt have complaints about that, but he can like it or lump it. He can make his own plans if he wants. He can stay here and try to talk his way out of another visit from Joly Berlet’s finest, for all Eames cares.

He has a quick, unwanted flash: Arthur gagged and bludgeoned, plunged in the ocean. A thin chain of silver bubbles trailing him into the black.

He shifts in his seat, fingering the sap in his pocket. God willing he won’t have to use it. The mark might be a cock but he’s also a fifty eight-year-old dyspeptic, underexercised and probably fragile, and they need what’s in his head. Not to mention that coshing a rich old white man on the sidewalk outside his hotel is going to attract some attention.

He should tell Arthur about the Johannesburg flight. But Arthur isn’t sensible. Arthur thinks he can do this job with a sprained arm, no architect or chemist, and a mass murderer breathing down his neck. This is exactly the kind of impossibility that makes Arthur dig in and hold the line.

“Okay,” Arthur says, breathing out. Eames is close enough to feel a wave of tension leave his body. He leans back in the seat, letting the hypo fall against his knee. “That’s it. We bail.”

Eames looks at him. “What?”

“This is a bad plan. It was bad enough if he was on time, it’s worse now. We bail, we run. I’ll figure—“ Arthur stops short, staring out the window. Eames turns to look. The mark has come out of the building, together with two other old white men, similarly trout-faced. Jonathina has stepped into their path. She’s speaking to them.

“Oh Jesus,” Arthur says. 

They both sit up, shoulder to shoulder, and watch as Jonathina starts to lead the mark toward the limo. The other two men trail behind, frowning. 

“I told her not to—“ Arthur breaks off, clenching his jaw. “Okay, uh—“

It crosses Eames’s mind that they could fling open the driver-side door and bolt. It would be ignominious, but ignominy has saved his hide before. He notices that Arthur still has the hypodermic in his hand. 

“Put that away.” He puts his hand over Arthur’s, turning it so that the needle doesn’t show. Arthur frowns.

“What good is that—“

“Sit back.” Eames sits back, and when Arthur doesn’t do the same, he grabs him by his shoulder—the good one—and yanks him. Arthur’s rigid under his suit. “Look like a bloody imperialist, will you?”

“What?”

“Look like swine.” Eames affects a languid, unconcerned expression himself, just as the passenger side door opens. Jonathina glances in, then disappears without a word. The mark peers in at them.

“Who are you?” He sounds peevish. But not frightened. 

“Didn’t the girl tell you,” Eames says. “We’re along for the ride.”

The mark’s lips pinch tighter. He pokes his glasses up his nose. “I don’t see why I need bodyguards to drive across town. Who sent you, again?”

“Mr. Benedict,” Arthur says immediately. “He apologizes for the inconvenience. And says to give you this.” He holds something out—it’s his mobile phone. The mark takes it, then turns to the men waiting behind him. 

“We’ll have to pick this up later.” He ducks into the car, the phone still in his hand. Jonathina closes the door behind him, and walks briskly around the hood to his driver’s seat while the mark is still puzzling over the phone.

“Did he put a lock on this thing?” He holds it up. “I can’t get into it.” As he looks at them, his expression focuses somewhat. He looks annoyed and baffled. “Haven’t I see you before somewhere?”

“I’m sorry sir,” Arthur says. “Let me take a look at it.” 

They’re pulling out into traffic as Arthur leans forward as if to take the phone, but instead grabs the mark’s wrist with his right hand. He yanks. The mark lands on his knees in the footwell.

“What the hell?” The man’s livid—then, in an instant, terrified. It all only takes a couple of seconds. He lashes out with his free hand, striking at Arthur’s head. Eames is already off his seat by then, piling on with knees and elbows. The hypo goes missing for a second in the blitz—then it turns up in Arthur’s hand, then the mark’s neck. The mark sputters, then slumps.

“Jesus Christ.” Arthur falls backward onto his heels, feeling around the carpet for the syringe cap. Eames spots it and hands it over. They’re both sweating. It wasn’t elegant, it was hardly even professional. But under the circumstances, it was all right.

“Everything okay?” Jonathina’s watching them in the rear view mirror. “You have him okay?”

“Everything’s okay,” Eames says. Arthur waves a hand and pulls himself back onto the seat, wincing. “Everything’s fine, thanks.”

“Good.” Jonathina slows for a turn, her eyes cutting back and forth between them and the road. “He was late.”

“Yes,” Arthur says. “He was.”

“And he was with people. You said he would be alone.”

“I said if he wasn’t alone, to cut out.”

Jonathina says nothing. Arthur looks at the level in the syringe, then slips it into his pocket. Eames feels for the mark’s pulse. Steady and strong.

“If he expected to see you in the car, he wouldn’t cause a fuss.” Jonathina’s eyes are on the road. “I told him you were from the company. That way we could still do the job.”

“That’s not what I said to do.” Arthur closes his eyes for a moment and pinches the bridge of his nose. “But it worked. So okay.”

Jonathina doesn’t say anything, but smiles.

 

 

At the warehouse, they set up the PASIV in the back of the limo. It’s quick and easy that way—Arthur on one seat, Eames on the other, the mark on the floor in between. Jonathina stands outside the open door, watching them with frank interest. 

“You are going to sleep,” she says, in a clarifying tone. She doesn't quite seem to believe it. Eames gives her a thin smile.

“Yes.” Arthur’s rolled up his left sleeve already, and he’s doing final checks on the loads. “Just for five minutes. If anything happens—if anyone comes—you wake us up. But only if something happens.”

“That bit’s important,” Eames says, working on his own sleeve. “No early wake-up calls, please. We’re going to be busy down there.”

Jonathina’s eyebrow lifts. She fiddles with the pen and paper he’s given her to hold, and watches Arthur pull the lines out of their reels. 

“Here,” Eames says, taking the nearest line and gesturing for Arthur’s arm. Arthur puts it out and Eames finds the vein and sinks the needle as quickly as he can. He does his own arm himself. Then he leans back into the seat and watches Arthur check the levels one last, obsessive time.

“Okay,” Arthur says at last, looking up. He looks thin and a little wild. The scuffle with the mark knocked some color into his cheeks. “We’re good to go.”

“Then by all means,” Eames says. 

Arthur looks at Jonathina. “Five minutes. And if anything goes wrong up here—“

“I wake you up,” Jonathina says. “Not otherwise. Not before.”

“You may have a future in this business,” Eames tells her. 

“Use your watch,” Arthur says. “If we sleep past seven minutes, wake us up.”

Jonathina nods. Arthur looks at Eames one last time, asking a question without speaking. Eames nods. Arthur pushes the button.

 

They’re in the Aspen summer home, afternoon light spilling through the windows and the skylight that Mira put in before she bailed. Eames and the mark, sitting on the long low sofa facing the fireplace. They’re middle-fifties, in shorts and T-shirts, with beers in their hands. The stereo plays Jimmy Buffett. 

“You changed the carpet,” the mark says, looking around. Eames puts his feet up on the glass coffee table. 

“Margaret redid a bunch of stuff.” He shrugs. “She thought it was dated.”

“But you just moved in, what, a year ago?” 

Eames lifts his hands, the universal helpless gesture of a man out of his depth in the domestic arena. “Burger?”

He tosses the man the remote on his way out the French doors to the deck, where Arthur is standing in the sunshine, just out of sight, with his gun at his side. They look at each other but there’s nothing to say. Eames goes to peer over the edge of the balcony, at the rocky garden below. All is quiet. 

The barbecue is already going. He takes a plate of blood-sauced hamburgers back inside, where the mark is watching football.

They eat burgers and drink beer, two men sharing space without paying much attention to each other, until Eames sets down his plate and wipes his lips and says, “I need to ask you something.”

The mark glances at him, still chewing.

“About Guiana,” Eames clarifies. The mark’s gaze narrows. The air chills a fraction. Eames drinks his beer and waits it out. 

“Guiana,” the mark says finally. “What about Guiana?”

“I heard a rumor. A very bad rumor. I need to know you’ve been smart. Or if you were dumb, I need to know that too.”

“Dumb?” The mark frowns. “What kind of dumb?”

“The kind of dumb that means I start hearing names.”

The mark swallows. “No. Not me.”

“Not you?”

“Not me. If someone talked, it wasn’t me. Jesus, Mark.” He leans forward, dropping his plate with a clatter on the glass. “You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“Somebody did.”

“I thought you said it was a rumor.”

“I need to know why I’m hearing it. That’s why I’m asking you the question.” Eames leans back and lets his hands fall over his protuberant mid-fifties belly. “Do you still have the list?”

The mark looks pinched. 

“Do you have it here?”

The man’s eyes slide right, off of Eames’s face. Eames gives it a minute, then gets up and goes to the kitchen. The house feels even chillier now, but he opens the fridge and pulls out two beers. 

Back in the other room, the mark is standing in front of the mantel, looking at the painting. It’s a murky abstract, mostly black and blue with a few streaks of red. He turns when Eames holds out the beer.

“I don’t like this.” He sounds peevish. “You should tell Margaret to change it.”

“I’ll get right on that.” He smiles to show how impossible that will be. Then drops the smile. “The list.”

The mark drinks his beer, studying the painting. He’s the younger brother, always in his older brother’s shadow. They’re both rich men, but the older brother’s richer. It’s his mining company. The mark just works there. He’s good with numbers and rocks. Bad with people, unlike his expansive, easygoing, casually felonous older brother. The mark grew up feeling second-best and hard done by. Running the Guiana job made him feel like a bigger man, a full partner. He was trusted with men’s lives, and with their deaths. And now Eames is revoking that trust.

“I didn’t talk,” the man says again. “You know that.”

“I know that,” Eames says. “But I need the list.”

“I told you—“

“I know.” There’s a rumble outside. The light through the windows has gone grey and wintry. Eames keeps his eyes on the mark’s face. “I gave it to you, now give it back.”

“But it’s mine.” The man’s voice has turned wheedling. The child is coming through. That’s good, that’s what they need in order for the dream alchemy to work—but it’s also what will draw projections up out of the murk. Arthur’s on the deck with his gun, but there’s only so much he can do if the man’s been militarized.

“Here.” Eames puts his hand on the man’s arm, turning him until they’re facing each other. He holds him by his shoulders and looks him in the eye. “You didn’t talk. I believe you. But somebody did. Once I figure out who fucked this up, we can go after him together.”

The mark’s eyes have started to water. He looks at Eames beseechingly, like a dog. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Eames shakes him lightly. “Come on, you’re my brother. Who else am I going to trust?”

The mark sniffles, then nods and turns away. He goes to a duffel bag on the carpet by the sofa, unzips it, and pulls out a file folder. 

Eames takes it cautiously, with a peripheral eye on the weather. It doesn’t seem worse—if anything, it’s lightened. He opens the folder and scans it quickly. Half a dozen names, mostly American. One groggily French, one Guianese. He’s a quick study. 

“Is this it?” He holds it up and the mark nods. “Come here.”

He goes to the fireplace, tosses the folder into the grate, and flips open the hinged case of long wooden hearth matches. “Let’s light this sucker up. Brother.”

The mark is smiling again. Sun is filtering through the windows. He takes a match from the case, strikes it, and lights the corner of the folder. Together they watch it go up in flames.

 

“Did you get it?” Arthur asks, almost before he’s opened his eyes. He’s already fumbling groggily for the needle in his arm. 

“Yes.” Eames sits up and motions for Jonathina to hand him the pen and paper. With the cannula still in his arm, he starts to write. Half a dozen names, still floating in front of his eyes as if he’s holding the mark’s folder. When he’s done he folds the paper and hands it to Arthur, who scans it.

“No addresses.”

“It’s what he had.” Eames plucks the needle out carefully. “And no one got shot, imagine that.”

“I need my laptop.” Arthur’s clambering out of the car, over the mark’s prone body. He forgets about his bad arm, puts weight on it, and almost topples. Eames catches him by the back of his shirt. “Fuck. Thanks.”

“Clumsy.” Eames gets out and turns to wind up the PASIV. “We meet back at the hotel, yes?”

“Yeah. No.” Arthur’s distracted—opening up his car, hauling out his laptop case, setting it on the hood. “I need some time to find addresses. Then the delivery—“ He pauses, checking the time. “You should go to the airport. Get a head start.”

“I think I’ll stay.” Eames pulls the PASIV from the limo and turns to Jonathina. “Do you remember where to take him?”

“To Ubongo. To the bus station.” Jonathina takes the cap from her head and runs her fingers over her scalp. “Park the car and leave the air conditioning on.”

“You have a change of clothes?”

Jonathina nods. Then she points at the silver case in Eames’s hand. “What is that thing?”

Eames smiles. “Trade secret.” He whisks it away to the back seat of his own car and closes it up. Jonathina’s eyes track it all and she stands pensively for a moment before she dons the cap again. Closing the limo’s back door, she says, “I could have a future in this, maybe.” 

“Maybe.” Eames goes to Arthur’s side and pulls the second envelope of cash from his briefcase. Arthur’s typing—he doesn’t bother to look up. “There you are. As agreed.” 

Jonathina takes the envelope and fingers it. “I helped, getting your man into the car.”

“And I gave you another hundred for your trouble.”

She shakes her head. “Not money. This—“ She waves at Eames’s car, where the PASIV sits. “I would like to know more about it.”

“Believe me,” Arthur says, without looking up from his screen. “It’s not all fun and games.”

“He’s right.” Eames takes out the pen and finds a scrap receipt in his pocket. He scribbles down a phone number and holds it out. “But I’ll tell you what. We may be dead later today. If we’re not, you might find me at this number in a few days.”

“Eames.” Arthur is giving him a sharp look over his shoulder. Eames waves him off.

“Mind your own business.” He watches as Jonathina takes the number, studies it, then slips it away into her pocket. “As I said, we’ll probably be dead.”

“I hope not.” Jonathina’s smiling slightly, showing crossed front teeth. “I’ll go to Ubongo now.”

“Take the uniform with you,” Arthur says. “Don’t sell it, don't keep it. Ditch it somewhere it won’t be found.”

Jonathina nods and sketches a half-wave, half-salute, then walks around the limo and pulls out. Eames goes back to peer at Arthur’s screen.

“You’re in HR now?” Arthur asks, still typing.

“I’m your man in Africa, aren’t I? I need to keep up my contacts.”

“My man?” Arthur glances at him. “Is that an expression?”

“It might be.” Eames steps back as Arthur closes the laptop. “I suppose you think it’s too early to celebrate.”

“Go to the airport, Eames. Get a flight.”

“There’s not much point in my doing that though, is there? If Mr. Berlet’s unhappy, I’ll hear about it sooner or later, wherever I go.”

“Well, there’s nothing else for you to do here.”

“You never know, Mr. Berlet might want to commend me for a job well done.”

Arthur gives a single derisive exhale, and turns to put the briefcase in his car. “I need to make some calls.”

“You need to get Mr. Berlet his hit list.”

“I need to get us off his hit list.” 

“Arthur.”

Arthur pauses, one leg already in the car, the keys dangling from his fingers. Eames steps around the open driver’s door, right into Arthur’s space. He puts out his hand and inserts his first two fingers carefully into the collar of Arthur’s shirt. He can feel the smooth weight of the shirt fabric, the hard knot of Arthur’s tie. The heat of Arthur’s skin, and then his pulse, strong and regular. 

Arthur stands still, eyeing him. There’s no sound but the buzz of the air conditioning in Eames’s car.

Then Eames pulls slightly on Arthur’s shirt. Arthur breathes in quickly, a single short breath like the gasp before jumping off a bridge into a river—and leans forward and tips his head and they kiss. It’s light, almost tentative at first. Then Arthur leans in harder and his tongue pushes past Eames’s lips. His hand brushes the nape of Eames’s neck. He makes a small, animal sound.

All of a sudden Eames remembers what it’s like, fucking Arthur. Arthur, who not only likes it hard but likes it, period. Who has a wonderful greediness, a whole-body appreciation for the things that Eames can do for him. To him. 

Arthur bites down on Eames’s tongue and Eames’s whole body flashes on a memory: fucking Arthur in some nameless hotel bed. Lying side by side with Arthur’s strong back twisted, his spine arched, his palm braced against the headboard. His arm locked, the muscles standing out. One leg canted up, his body rigid in what must have been half pain. But when Eames fumbled a hand up between and around, he felt Arthur’s cock slick and hard, pinned to his belly. Arthur’s free hand clamped at its base, holding it in check. The whole time, Arthur making those strangled, desperate sounds. As if doesn’t just appreciate it, doesn’t just like it or want it or choose to pass the time with it. As if he needs it. Eames pinning him down and fucking him. Arthur needs that.

Eames’s cock stiffens a little in his shorts. Enough, he thinks, that Arthur might have felt it. 

Arthur breaks the kiss. His hand falls away from Eames’s neck.

“Well.” Eames’s face is heated. He’s still got a two-finger hold on Arthur’s collar. “That’s something.”

“That’s—“ Arthur looks away. He rubs his mouth. “I thought we didn’t do that anymore.”

“But after escaping certain death, and all that.” 

“We haven’t escaped it yet.” Arthur holds up the keys. “I have to go. Now.”

“I’ll go with you to the drop.”

“No.” 

“Tell me where to meet you then.”

“Get a flight, Eames.” Arthur takes hold of Eames’s wrist—gently, Eames notices—and frees himself from the collar grip. “Go somewhere. Lay low for a while.”

“I’d rather not.” 

“This isn’t your problem anymore. It was never your problem to start with.”

“I realize that.” Eames steps back and lets Arthur get into the car and close the door. He steps forward and taps the window. Arthur buzzes it down. “Tell me where to meet you.”

“Eames—“

“Tell me.”

For a moment Arthur just stares at him. There’s a flush in his cheeks. His lips are pink. At last he looks away.

“I’ll text you,” he says.

“I look forward to it,” Eames says, smiling. Arthur’s already pulling away. 

 

He clears out his hotel room, shuffling through his passports and choosing the one that seems safest at the moment, the Irish one. He puts it in his suit coat pocket and slips the rest of them into the hidden luggage pocket. Then he checks out and goes to the hotel bar to wait, his phone on the table in front of him.

It’s nearly five o’clock when the screen lights up. 

_Headed to airport._

Eames texts back: _All OK?_

There’s a long pause, long enough that he breaks a light sweat. Then:

_OK._

That’s all, and he feels both a swell of relief and a separate, conflicting wave of irritation. He’s about to dial Arthur’s phone when another text appears.

_Better to travel separately. Chicago?_

Eames considers. It’s not exactly in his plans, but then he’s not aware of anything that would prevent him going, either. And Chicago is Arthur’s American hometown. That realization gives him a tiny, ridiculous flush of pleasure. Arthur’s inviting him in, so to speak.

_See you there._

He puts the phone away and signals for the bill.

 

His flight has stopovers in Doha and London, but it gets him to Chicago a little after four o’clock the following day. He emerges from O’Hare squinting under a white-clouded sky. It’s late summer, hot and humid. His phone is almost out of battery. He texted Arthur from the customs lineup, asking for an address. He still doesn’t have a reply.

He’s pondering the taxi stand when the phone buzzes and he has his destination. Nothing else, just an address—and he could choose to be annoyed by that but he’s just woken up and his neck is sore and he’s fairly certain this is Arthur’s home address, or whatever passes for Arthur’s home. Which is not something he ever thought he’d see. He joins the stand queue and half an hour later he’s standing in front of a Wicker Park brownstone, under the shade of a maple tree. He climbs the stairs and rings the bell.

There’s a long wait, then a blurry outline through the stippled glass window. The door opens. Arthur’s standing mostly behind it. At a glance, Eames can see that his right cheek is bruised purple and puffy, up around his eye. There’s a thin black split in his bottom lip. 

“Come in,” he says quietly, his eyes skimming over Eames and past him, down to the street below. 

Eames walks into the foyer—dark glossy wood floor, wooden arch in white walls, stairs leading up directly in front of him. Arthur closes the door and flips several locks.

“Hello,” Eames says. Eyeing the locks, he adds, “Nice to be secure.”

“It’s Chicago,” Arthur says, as if that’s an explanation. He smiles. He’s wearing dark jeans and a faded blue T-shirt, and holding a pistol in his left hand. 

“I thought you said things were all right with Berlet.” Eames leans closer, studying Arthur’s bruise. “It looks like there was some disagreement.”

Arthur shrugs, still smiling. “It’s fine. No big deal.”

“Do you always open your door with a gun in your hand?”

“I’m waiting for the all-clear. Until then, I guess we’re still not out of the woods.”

“So it might have been wiser for me to fly to Jakarta.”

“Probably. But you insisted.” Arthur lays the pistol down on a small table behind the door. “Come on in.” 

The house isn’t lavish or large, but it’s well-appointed and probably worth at least a million, if Eames knows anything about Chicago. There’s a south-facing kitchen with good escape windows and a long table covered in newspapers. There’s a stainless steel refrigerator, and a tactical knife on top of a wooden cutting block. There’s a laptop playing CNN in silence beside a sheaf of supermarket flyers. Eames stands in the doorway, taking it in, while Arthur goes to the sink and draws a glass of water.

“Domestic,” is all that Eames can think to say, when Arthur comes back and hands him the glass, unasked-for. Then: “Thank you.” 

“I’m not here much. Obviously. But I was thinking, if I’m going to be executed where do I want it to happen? And this seemed like the best place.” Arthur doesn’t seem to notice the way Eames narrows his eyes over the rim of the glass. “At the very least, from a law enforcement perspective.”

“Of course.” Eames sets the glass down and goes to look out the window. The next door neighbor has a plastic play set in the back garden. “Although I’m not sure Joly Berlet is much troubled by any country’s attempts at law enforcement.”

“No.” Arthur takes the knife from the cutting block and pulls a set of whetstones from the mess of papers on the table. “Any trouble getting here?”

“None whatsoever.” Eames watches Arthur inspect the blade, then start to shape it with the first stone. “When do you get the all-clear?”

“When we’re all clear.” Arthur blows on the blade and glances up at him. “You can grab a shower upstairs if you want.”

“Is that a hint?”

“Maybe.” 

“I just flew halfway around the world on your account. If I have a pong, it’s not my fault.”

Arthur seems about to say something, but he stops himself. Instead, he smiles. It’s remarkable, how untroubled he seems by all this. “So you’re not my man in Africa anymore, is what you’re saying.”

“It’s just an expression.”

“Go take a shower.” Arthur bends over the blade again. “If you’re hungry I can order food.”

“Do that.” Eames gathers his bags and starts up the stairs, mildly amazed that Arthur is giving him free rein. He’s going to poke around, of course—it’s a given. But Arthur doesn’t seem to care. Maybe he doesn’t really consider this house home, or maybe the threat of impending execution has dissolved his personal boundaries. 

Regardless, Eames parks his bags in the loo and then goes around putting his head through every other door he can find. He doesn’t bother to walk lightly. If Arthur wants him to stop, he can say so.

Not that there’s much to see. The first room is an office, lined with bookshelves and magazine files, a drafting desk, a large dual-screen iMac. The next is a spare bedroom, furnished only with an obligatory night table and a naked bed. The last, at the far end of the hall, is Arthur’s room. It’s larger, with good windows. There’s a big bed covered in rucked-up white sheets. Beside it, a gun safe with a lamp on top. Arthur’s suitcase stands beside an open closet, in which hang a dozen very nice suits. In the en suite, Arthur’s toiletries cover the counter top. Eames picks up his shaving cream and sniffs the familiar scent while he looks around. It’s all surprisingly, pleasantly untidy.

He’s walking back down the hall to the loo when Arthur appears at the bottom of the stairs. “Thai food in twenty minutes,” he says. “If you’re finished looking around, that is.”

“For now, thanks.” Eames goes into the bathroom and locks the door, strips off his overtired traveling clothes, and cranks the shower up hot. 

Standing under the water, he tries to decide what he’s feeling. Excitement. Arousal. It’s fucking hot to be in Arthur’s house. To be nosing around his private space, apparently with full permission. Arthur, who has always kept his personal life buttoned up and out of sight. Arthur, who could stand to be fucked half blind—who demanded it, actually—but never spent the night. Arthur, the closed door. Suddenly standing open.

He’s half-hard, just thinking about looking at Arthur’s bedroom. The rumpled sheets, the suitcase standing by the closet. Things he’s used and left unattended. Eames likes learning people. He likes the little kindnesses, the moments of greed and generosity. The unguarded moments. 

When he’s washed and shaved he forces himself to stand beneath a blast of cold water, just to teach himself a lesson.

 

In the front room, Arthur is sprawled on a long leather couch in front of a television, eating noodles from a carton. There’s a mobile phone on his thigh and a laptop open on the table beside him.

“Thanks,” Eames says, settling on the far end of the couch and reaching for the plastic bag of food. “Keeping an eye on current affairs?” 

Arthur nods without looking away from the television. It’s the BBC, showing global news briefs. On the laptop screen, a Twitter feed updates itself.

“If he doesn’t want it to get out, it won’t.” Arthur digs a prawn from his carton and nips it neatly in half. “But if he wants to make a statement, the news might pick it up.”

“Six bodies found floating in Menai Bay,” Eames says. “Zero heads. That kind of thing.” 

“Maybe.” 

“Does it bother you, contributing to the deaths of people you don’t know?”

Arthur looks at him, chewing. Then he goes back to the television.

“You never told me why you took this job,” Eames says. 

“No, I never did.”

“Would you like me to guess?”

Arthur peers into his carton, then plants the chopsticks and puts it down on the floor by his foot. He leans back into the couch, laying the fingers of one hand on the mobile phone. “They wanted Cobb. I negotiated for it instead.”

Eames sits still, saying nothing.

“Cobb did a job,” Arthur says. “A long time ago. Before he took me on. Berlet was the client. The job went sour. They agreed that Cobb owed a favor, to be collected at a later date.” His voice is quiet and flat. 

Eames looks down at the carton in his hand. 

“Well,” he says. “That was noble of you, I suppose.”

“Not really. Cobb’s been out of the business for what, three or four years now? He couldn’t do a job like this. I could barely do a job like this, and I’ve been working full time since he started me.”

“Still. It wasn’t really your problem.”

“It wasn’t your problem either.” Arthur smiles, and despite the bruise around his eye and the fatigue in his face, he looks genuinely amused. “We’re both suckers.”

“Does he know?”

Arthur shakes his head, looking back at the television. “And he isn’t going to. The whole point was to keep Berlet away from Cobb and the kids.”

“Of course.”

“So there you go.” Arthur leans down and collects his food. “That’s the story.”

“All’s well that ends well, I suppose.”

“Except it hasn’t ended yet.” 

Eames opens his carton and they eat in silence for a few minutes. The food is good, spicy and sour. He’s hungrier than he realized.

At last Arthur wipes his lips with a napkin and puts the carton back in its bag. The news program has switched focus to the Ukraine. The mobile phone is silent.

“No news is good news,” Eames says, dropping his own carton onto the table.

“Good news would be better.” Arthur stands and stretches. He’s still moving stiffly, Eames notices. As he watches, Arthur rotates the left shoulder slowly, grimacing. 

“It’ll get better when you’ve had some sleep,” Eames tells him. “If you can sleep, that is.”

“I don’t know,” Arthur says. “I was sort of thinking of not sleeping, at least for a little while.” He smiles with a particular kind of focus, and there it is—one of Arthur’s invitations. Despite himself, Eames feels his cock shift in his shorts. 

“I don’t think,” he says slowly, “that you’re in any shape to think like that.”

“I’m fine.” Arthur picks up the remote and kills the television. “You didn’t come all this way just to snoop through my closets.”

“I did enjoy that, though.”

“I bet you did.” Arthur sounds amused, not annoyed. “What is it you want to know about me, exactly?”

“I don’t know. Who you are, perhaps.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“No, I suppose you don’t.”

“It’s not like you’re an open book, yourself. _Mr. Eames._ ” Arthur puts a little emphasis on that, to point out what they both know: that Eames isn’t really named Eames. Or that Eames is only one of his names.

“I contain multitudes. But that’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?” Arthur raises one foot and shoves the table away from the couch, opening up space in front of Eames’s feet. Before Eames can say anything, he drops to his knees and lays his palms on Eames’s thighs. “You’re in my house, okay? You’ve seen pretty much everything I have. Does that count?”

“Yes. It counts.” Eames reaches down to shift his cock inside his trousers, uncomfortably. “Stop smirking.”

“Sorry.” Arthur doesn’t stop. His hands are warm and strong, and he’s started to rub Eames’s thighs gently, in and up. “Do you want me to stop this, too?”

“I do and I don’t.” Eames leans forward and catches Arthur’s wrists, holding him still. “I want to fuck you absolutely blind, all right? I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have stayed a minute longer than necessary in Dar if I didn’t. I wouldn’t even have answered your fucking text. And if I hadn’t, you’d be dead at the bottom of the bay. So you should be very fucking glad that I want you to keep doing that.”

Arthur’s hands have stopped moving, but he hasn’t tried to take them away. “I am glad.” His eyes are dark and intense, locked on Eames’s face. “I’m glad, Eames.”

“And now here I am in Chicago, waiting to see if I’m going to have my head blown off thanks to my wanting to fuck you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Eames’s face feels hot, his heart is beating hard. He’s not sure where this is all coming from, but it feels like it’s been pent up for a long time. “Don’t be sorry. I want to fuck you, you want to fuck me, that part’s simple. It’s the rest of it that’s the problem.”

“The rest of what?”

“Exactly. You get fucked, you get your therapy or your penance or whatever. And then you bugger off until you need it again. Or until you need something else. Your man in Africa, ready and waiting.”

“Eames—“

“If I called you, and told you to drop everything and come, you’d do that?”

Arthur’s silent. He’s not smiling anymore. His hands are still.

“If I brought you into a job and didn’t tell you what was going on, you’d stick around anyway?”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.” Arthur’s voice is quiet.

“I’m not saying you did. I did that on my own. I chose to do that, because I wanted to do that. Because I want to fuck you, but I also want—“ Eames lets go of Arthur’s wrists and leans back. “I’m saying you’ve been a cock. And I’ve been a twit. And nothing’s really changed since the last time we had this conversation.”

Arthur sits back on his heels. He looks particularly bruised now, as if Eames hasn’t just told him off but backhanded him as well. 

“I’m sorry,” he says after a moment. 

“Stop apologizing.” Eames grimaces. “If I’m going to be executed, Chicago is as good a place as any.”

Arthur sits there a minute longer, then gets up and sweeps the remains of the food—napkins, forks, chopsticks—into the plastic bag. He closes the laptop and goes out, to the kitchen by the sound of it. Eames hears the rubbish bin open, the faucet turn on. 

When he gets up and goes to lean in the doorway, Arthur is drying a glass with a clean dish towel, staring at nothing in particular.

“It’s my fault really,” Eames says. “I should know when to fold my hand.”

Arthur looks at him sharply, as if he’s said something surprising or profound. He tosses the towel onto the kitchen table, with the newspapers.

“I don’t have much here,” he says. “But there’s a bottle of Scotch around somewhere. If you want some.”

“Lovely.” 

Eames leaves Arthur to rattle around in the mostly-empty cabinets, and goes back to lie on the couch. It’s getting dark outside. The street lamps have come on. Outside the window, the maple leaves are black and distinct, like paper cutouts against the deep blue sky.

Arthur comes in with two glasses, which he sets on the table. The whiskey is Highland Park, with dust on the shoulders of the bottle. Arthur pours them each a healthy dose and hands one over, sinking cross-legged to the floor.

“To the army and the navy,” Eames says, raising his glass. 

“To good news,” Arthur says, a little absently. He only takes a sip, then puts the glass down. “Listen, Eames.”

Eames rocks his feet back and forth, studying the window through them.

“Here’s the thing,” Arthur says. He’s speaking slowly, like a blind man groping down a hallway. “I’m not…good at this. Talking, I mean.”

“You can’t be worse than I am.”

“I am, actually. And I know you tried to bring it up before, and I shut you down. And I’m sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t want to talk about it. And I didn’t have to, so I just walked away. Which was a dick move.”

“You don’t have to talk about it now either.”

“I know. What I’m saying is, I don’t usually talk like this with anyone. I never talk like this. About—“ Arthur hesitates for a long, long moment. “Feelings. I guess.”

Eames puts his hand over his face. After a moment, Arthur says, “Are you laughing?”

“No.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“No. A little.”

“Fuck you.” Arthur swigs from his glass.

“I’m sorry.” Eames rubs his eyes. “Jet lag. And you sound a bit…like you’re suffering under duress.”

“Yeah, I did that recently too. I’m pretty tired.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.” Eames props his head up and looks at Arthur, who's getting hard to see in the half light. “Was it bad?”

Arthur shakes his head. “They knocked me around a little. Pretty pro forma.”

“You look colorful.”

“Yeah, it was fun going through customs with this face.” Arthur looks sour, then shakes his head. “Anyway. I’m not great with this kind of thing.”

“Feelings.”

“Thanks. Yeah. Which is why I’d rather just cut to the chase, most of the time.”

“Fuck, you mean.”

“Yeah.” Arthur turns his glass in his fingertips. “I’m pretty good at that part, I think.”

“Who told you that?”

“What I’m trying to say is, you’re sitting in my living room for a reason. If you were anyone else, I wouldn’t have invited you here.”

“You hardly invited me. I had to hound you for the address.”

“I invited you because I—“ Arthur falls silent. Eames turns his head to look at him. “I’m not an idiot, okay? You stuck around in Dar when you didn’t have to. You fucking saved my life with Berlet’s guys, let’s be real.”

“Might not have,” Eames says. “Yet.”

“I gave you my address because I wanted to. Because I like you, and I wanted to see you. I wanted to see more of you, I mean. And if I’m going to get my head blown off, I’d like to spend the last day or two with you. More than anyone else I can think of, right now.” 

Eames feels something loosen in his chest, between his rib cage and his spine. It’s almost painful, like an old knot prising itself apart. 

“I’m flattered,” he says, then has to pause to clear his throat. He takes a hot sip of whiskey. “When you’ve got a gun to your head, you like me well enough to let me see inside your closets.”

“Eames.” Arthur leans closer, dead serious. “I’d rather get punched in the face some more by Berlet’s guys than tell you how I feel about you. But I’m trying to do it, because you want to hear it.” 

“I appreciate that,” Eames says quietly.

“It’s not like it was before, for me. I liked you before, I wasn’t just using you for sex. But now—“ Arthur smiles tightly; Eames can see the movement in the side of his face. “Having a gun to your head makes some things a lot clearer, you know?”

“It can. And sometimes it can make it hard to know what’s real and what isn’t.”

“Jesus Christ,” Arthur says. “Could you please just kiss me?”

Eames sets his glass down on the floor. He reaches out and places his fingertips against Arthur’s jaw, then takes hold of him in a loose grip and pulls. Arthur rises up on his knees, bracing himself against the sofa with a creaking of leather. They kiss. It’s awkward and gentle. Arthur’s lips are soft, and his beard scruff scrapes Eames’s skin.

“Thank you,” Arthur murmurs, and Eames doesn’t know if it’s for complying or for coming to Dar or saving his life or what. But it sends an electric jolt to his heart and his cock. He wraps his arms around Arthur and pulls, harder this time. Arthur gives a grunt of discomfort—the shoulder, the bruises—and hauls himself up on top of Eames. They arrange things so that their legs interlock, with Arthur’s hands planted in the cushions on either side of Eames’s head. Arthur’s body is heavy and solid, the long muscles of his legs flexing against Eames’s as he finds his balance. 

“You’re welcome,” Eames says, pulling him down for another kiss. 

Within minutes they’re grinding hard against each other, panting into each other’s mouths and making the couch creak as Eames tries to get his hand down in between to wrestle with buttons and flies. Arthur’s cock is hard as stone against his leg. 

“Don’t,” Arthur gasps, when Eames finally gets his zipper down. “Don’t—not yet.” He rears back on his knees, grabbing his own crotch without shame or dignity, in what looks like a punishing grip. Eames takes the opportunity to lift his own cock out of his flies, a little more carefully. He’s gotten so hard, so fast, that he feels a little dizzy. The urge to thrust is primal, practically undeniable.

“Okay.” Arthur’s groping for the sofa back, lowering himself slowly. “Shit, sorry.”

“Here. Wait.” Eames puts two fingers against Arthur’s collarbone, holding him back. It’s dark now but his eyes have adjusted and he can see a bit. Enough to see Arthur’s expression, the glassy heat in his eyes and the wet shine of his lips. He lies looking, while Arthur breathes slowly. “Here.”

He raises his other hand and rubs the thumb gently across Arthur’s broken lower lip. Then a little harder, pressing in. Arthur’s eyes close his hips start up their rhythm again, grinding against Eames’s hips and pelvis and the base of his cock. Arthur, Eames recalls, has the most remarkable flexibility in his lower back.

He slips his thumb into Arthur’s mouth, rubbing over his teeth and then the tip of his tongue. Arthur makes a sound like a rusty hinge. His lips close around Eames’s thumb and he rolls his tongue over it. It’s amazing, what that does to Eames’s cock.

They start grinding again, because it’s impossible not to. This time the rhythm builds hard and fast, and Arthur pulls his head to the side, frees his mouth, and says something guttural that sounds like, “Fuck it.” He starts jerking his cock, bearing down on Eames with his full weight, his whole body rigid. 

Eames takes the hint. He pulls his own cock, his knuckles bashing Arthur’s, their frustrated thrusts syncopating until the hot band that’s stretched from his balls to his heels suddenly snaps, and he comes in a messy paroxysm. He’s barely finished when Arthur says, “Fuck—Jesus—“ and finishes, spattering Eames’s shirt and chin.

They slow, then stop. Arthur makes a vague, half-assed effort to wipe his come off Eames’s shirt. 

“Get off,” Eames says, bucking up to make his point. Arthur slides back, landing on the far end of the sofa, freeing him to yank his shirt off over his head. There’s a smell of sex in the air now, together with scotch. It brings back memories.

“You all right?” he asks when he’s cleaned himself up and tossed his balled-up shirt to the floor. “All your parts still in their sockets?”

“So far,” Arthur says. He hauls himself up and pulls his own shirt off, his bare skin gleaming in the darkness. Then he spends a minute doing something Eames can’t figure out—fumbling around on the table and carpet. A blue square of light appears, illuminating Arthur’s lean belly and chest and his narrow, bruised, intent face. The mobile phone.

“Anything?” Eames asks.

The light goes out. 

“Not yet,” Arthur says. There’s a pause. Then he says, “Do you want to go upstairs?”

“Yes,” Eames says. “But bring the gun, will you?”

 

They fall into each other again in Arthur’s bed, in the dark bedroom lit only by the reflected orange glow of the street lamps. It’s slower this time. Arthur’s an accomplished cock-sucker, Eames remembers. He takes his time and enjoys it. By the time Eames is grinding his sweaty heels into the mattress, past the point of caring about Arthur’s split lip or bruised jaw, thinking only in a lust-dumb way that Arthur fucking needs this, he fucking deserves this, he can fucking well take it if he’s going to be this fucking good with his tongue—by that time, Arthur’s already come into the sheets across Eames’s left calf. By the time Eames comes, his mouth and throat are so dry they feel like paper. He staggers to the en suite and drinks from the toothbrush glass. 

“What time is it?” he asks later, half asleep in Arthur’s high-quality sheets. Arthur fumbles for the phone; it lights up the darkness.

“Two.” 

“Nothing yet.”

Arthur puts the phone on the gun safe, next to the pistol. “We could sleep in shifts.”

“The hell with it,” Eames says into the mattress. “If they’re going to kill us, they’re going to kill us.”

Arthur grunts in agreement. 

That’s all for a while.

 

Sometime before full dawn, Eames wakes up to a grey light and no idea where he is. In a bed, with someone—with Arthur. It comes back in a rush. Arthur’s sleeping on his side, turned away. In this light, Eames can see that his back and ribs are mottled with bruises. Pro forma, he’d said.

Eames lies staring at the bruises, his mind a blank. After a few minutes he puts out a hand and runs his fingers down Arthur’s side.

He can feel it, the moment Arthur wakes up—the stiffening of the muscles under the skin. Then Arthur turns over to face him, and it’s clear that for the first second or two he doesn’t know what’s going on either. 

“Hello,” Eames says, keeping his voice calm.

Arthur blinks, looks down at the bed and then turns to check the gun safe. The pistol’s still there, the phone’s beside it.

“No calls,” Eames says. Arthur leans over and taps the phone, shakes his head, then rubs his hands over his face.

“Come here,” Eames says, reaching.

He expects Arthur to pull away—it’s the morning after, strictly speaking, and they’ve never so much as slept in the same bed together. And there’s nerviness under Arthur’s skin, a tension flicker that Eames can feel clearly. 

But Arthur just says, “Hi,” in a morning-cracked voice, and smiles thinly. 

He looks rough, possibly rougher than he looked the day before. His lip split again sometime during the night; it looks angry and red. His eyes have sunk, the way they do when he’s unrested. 

“Can I do something horrible to you?” Eames asks. Arthur’s eyes narrow.

“What?”

“Yes or no? And remember, I saved your life.”

“I don’t—“ Arthur shakes his head. “No.”

“Too bad.” Eames smiles, taking his hand back. Arthur swallows.

“Okay. Yes.”

“Thank you.” Eames reaches out again, running his palm lightly down Arthur’s side to his hip, then back up. Arthur tenses. When Eames strokes him again, he frowns.

“What are you doing?”

“Roll over.” He tugs, encouraging Arthur onto his belly. With a look of misgiving, Arthur rolls. He’s clearly expecting some kind of attack, a finger up his arse or a punch in the back of the head. He lies perfectly still, his arms at his sides, while Eames props himself on one elbow and runs his hand over the smooth skin of Arthur’s back. He pauses over some of the darker bruises, his hand hardly touching them, feeling the heat between his palm and Arthur’s body.

“Eames.”

“Be quiet and accept your fate.” Eames leans over and kisses Arthur’s shoulder, then strokes a slow, gentle line from the nape of his neck to his tailbone. 

After a couple of minutes, Arthur starts to relax. He turns his face away, but doesn’t move otherwise. His breath slows. The energy beneath his skin starts to seep away.

“Eames.” Arthur’s voice is muffled, thick. “What are you doing?”

“A woman I knew did this for me once. After I broke some bones in a fall. It helped.” 

Arthur’s quiet. 

“If you want to go full bore you can imagine healing lights and so on,” Eames says. “But I imagined grandstand seats at Sandown Park and it worked just as well.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look like shit.” Eames kisses Arthur’s shoulder again, to soften the point. “Lovely shit, but shit.”

“I should get up. We both should.”

“Think about clean whiteboards. And pencil shavings.” 

“Fuck you.” Arthur sounds almost asleep.

“And things neatly folded on hangers.” Eames rests his palm over a bruise on Arthur’s side, waiting until he feels Arthur’s ribs expand into his hand with his breath. 

Some time after that, he falls asleep as well.

 

When he wakes up the room is bright. Birds are singing outside the window, in the maple branches. Arthur’s still konked out beside him.

Eames rolls out of the bed and goes to the loo for a slash and a tidy-up. Arthur’s sitting up when he comes back in.

“You look like the wrong end of a business proposition,” Eames tells him. “What did they beat you with, exactly?”

“Industrial cable, I think.” Arthur swings his legs out of the bed and grimaces, standing up slowly. “I asked them to avoid anything dental, though, and they were cool about it.”

“Obliging of them.” Eames watches Arthur hobble into the loo, feeling a sympathetic pang. The second or third day after a trouncing is often the worst, he knows from experience. 

He’s left his bags downstairs along with half of the clothes he was wearing the night before, so he starts opening drawers in Arthur’s dresser. Arthur emerges just as he’s shaking out a T-shirt with a DePaul University logo on it.

“What are you doing?” 

Eames tosses the shirt back into the drawer and hips it closed. “Confirming that we’re not the same size in anything.”

“No shit.” Squinting, Arthur pushes past him to pull the shirt back out of the drawer. He shrugs it on painfully, then drags a pair of khakis from the next drawer and steps into them. “I’m making coffee.”

He drags the phone and the pistol off the gun safe, checking them both automatically as he goes out. Eames pulls on last night’s trousers, hunts fruitlessly for his socks, and starts after him. 

He’s halfway down the hall when Arthur calls from the kitchen: “Eames.” There’s a flat urgency to his tone.

Eames takes the stairs rapid fire.

Arthur is in the kitchen, holding the pistol in both hands and staring at something on the table. An envelope. It wasn’t there the night before. 

They look at each other. Eames left the Rohrbaugh in Dar—bad practice to check a gun on an international flight, too many red flags. The tactical knife is still on the table, along with the whetstones. He picks it up. The weight is at least a little comforting.

“Doors?” he asks quietly. Arthur shrugs, shaking his head. 

“If they wanted to kill us they would have.” He lets out a long breath, then safeties the pistol and sets it on the cutting block in one sudden movement. “Let’s see what they have to say.”

He picks up the envelope and opens it. There’s only one piece of paper inside. Even from where he’s standing, Eames can see it’s a check.

Arthur stares at it for a long moment, as if he’s never seen a check before. Then he holds it out. Eames peers at it. It’s in Arthur’s name. Twenty thousand dollars, courtesy of Credit Suisse. 

Arthur flips the check. Written on the back in slanted blue script are the words: Services Provided.

The account is numbered. The check is anonymous.

Eames sets the knife down on the cutting block, and rubs his face.

“Television,” Arthur says. 

He limps into the front room and fires up the set and the Twitter feed. At first there’s nothing. Eames watches over his shoulder for a few minutes, then goes back to start some coffee. 

“Got it,” Arthur calls. Eames goes back in. The global news brief is showing some kind of carnage aftermath: a fire-blackened car chassis, the blasted side of a building. “Car bomb in the DRC. Four dead.”

Eames watches the rest of the thing—it’s only a few seconds, they’re calling it guerrilla activity. When it’s over Arthur mutes the set and turns to the laptop.

“Could be it, I suppose.” Eames goes back to the kitchen and starts the coffee machine. While it brews, he stands staring at the play set next door, his mind disengaged. Seeing the bruises on Arthur’s back. The twisted steel of the exploded car. 

When he turns around, Arthur’s in the doorway. “No word on the other two. But I guess Berlet’s happy either way.”

“Thank Christ for that.” 

Arthur pulls two mugs from the cupboard and hands one over. Eames squints at his, then blows dust from inside it. Arthur looks abashed.

“Shit.” He takes it back and rinses it out under the faucet. “I’m not here very much.”

“You should be. It’s nice.” It’s bizarre to stand here fussing with coffee mugs, with a covertly delivered check from Joly Berlet on the table and four dead men on the news. He’s jetlagged, Eames decides. Everything is bizarre.

They sit at the kitchen table and drink coffee—black, because Arthur drinks his coffee black and has no sense of hospitality, or at least no energy to go down to the corner shop for a carton of milk. 

“I would very much appreciate it,” Eames says, “if you would never do another job like this, ever again.”

Arthur, slumped over his coffee like a hungover teen, knuckles his eyes and nods. “Okay.”

“And I realize you may not have formal plans in this department yet, but if you’re going to go back to being an impossibly elusive prick now that the sword’s been lifted, I’d appreciate knowing in advance.”

This time Arthur looks at him with a faint smile. “I never stopped being an impossible prick.”

“Impossible elusive, I said.”

“I…don’t plan to do that.” Arthur sounds a little uncertain about that, but he’s clearly resolved to try. 

“And for God’s sake cash that check.”

Arthur laughs. “What do you want to buy?”

“Breakfast, for starters.”

“There’s a place down the street.” He plants his hands on the table and pushes himself to his feet. “You might want a shirt.”

Eames unzips his bag in the front room, letting his assortment of rumpled African ex-pat wear spill out. When Arthur reappears, scraped more or less into shape and carrying his boots with hooked fingers, he’s dressed and flipping channels. He watches as Arthur sinks into the sofa beside him, leaning forward with a grunt to lace the boots.

“That thing you were doing,” Arthur says, when he’s done one boot and stamping his foot into the other. “Upstairs, with my back.”

“Yeah.”

“I think it worked. A bit, anyway.” He flexes his shoulders, testing with a grimace. “Maybe later you could. Do it some more.”

“All right.” Eames goes back to NASCAR, but that same sensation blooms in his chest. The tightly-tied knot, untying itself. It doesn't hurt as much this time. It feels almost good.

Arthur shoves himself upright and fishes his keys from his pocket. “Yeah?”

Eames nods and flicks the telly off. When he stands, Arthur leans over and catches him by the wrist. It’s a little awkward, a little hard to parse. Then Arthur kisses him lightly, on the lips. 

“You ready?” he asks, settling back on his heels. 

“Yes,” Eames says. “I’ve been waiting on you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story would not have been possible without a short stay in a truly terrible off-strip Las Vegas hotel room in late June, 2014. Contributing factors to my writer’s residency included nuclear-level sunshine, inadequate public transit, and nowhere reasonable to eat a meal. I’d like to thank corn nuts and Green & Black’s dark mint chocolate. I would not like to thank Barefoot rosé wine.
> 
> This story is indebted in countless ways to every other Arthur/Eames story I have ever written, because my headcanon is invariable. Arthur is noble but in over his head! Eames is shiftless but faithful where it counts! They are both allergic to emotions! Arthur plays down physical injury! Eames is louche! There is a plucky female secondary character! There is not enough buttsex! There were going to be tacos in this one too, but in the end there weren’t! 
> 
> I would also like to thank anaphile and several other folks who have written truly delightful Arthur/Eames/Ariadne, which I will admit sustained me when I had to write any scenes in which Arthur and Eames weren’t actively bantering or making out. Also when I had to drink Barefoot rosé. Seriously, don’t drink that stuff. It’s the worst.
> 
> I would like to thank Mr. Edward Thomas Hardy for being such hot stuff and for saying delightful things in interviews such as, _“I actually think that dating can be a struggle, as I do demand a lot of fuss made of me. However, if you were my partner, you’d get a lot of attention back.”_ These kinds of things make beloved wife’s eyes roll back in her head and keep her occupied while I look up plane schedules between Tanzania and Chicago.
> 
> I would also like to thank Mr. Joseph Gordon-Levitt for being a self-proclaimed feminist and for wearing such tight pants in all of Arthur’s scenes. 
> 
> This story was written, let’s be honest, for my beloved wife’s birthday. Happy birthday, honey! I hope you liiiiiiiike iiiiiit!
> 
> Edited Sep 2015: Now with [stinger scenes!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4736549)


End file.
